In retrospect, Audie Cole probably should not be here, competing for the starting middle linebacker job with the Vikings. Or in the NFL for that matter.

Six-plus rounds and 209 selections were made in the 2012 draft before Minnesota took a flyer on the plough horse out of North Carolina State, who once dreamed of playing quarterback.

Even the Vikings gave up on Cole last year, waiving the special-teams reservist during a midseason roster crisis. None of the other 31 teams valued him enough to stake a claim, so Minnesota re-signed Cole, who became a revelation.

“Honestly, I forgot about that,” he said about his brief unemployment.

Lucky, ingenious or perhaps both, the Vikings retained a castoff with an intriguing story growing up in Monroe, Mich., 40 miles south of Detroit.

Cole never took a midnight train going anywhere, but his journey has a whiff of Americana to it.

The teenage Golden Gloves boxing champion is the son of a minor league baseball player named after World War II hero and movie star Audie Murphy.

And he once was an offensive protege of Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly before N.C. State lured him south to play linebacker.

Unassuming, eager to please but deceptively wry, Cole finds himself in Minnesota, waging a fierce battle with six-year veteran Jasper Brinkley to command a revamped defense from the so-called “Mike” position.

“I just show up and do what they ask me to do. I was fortunate I fell into something,” he said.

Cole recorded a team season-high 18 tackles in his first NFL start, a 26-26 overtime tie with the Packers in Week 12 last season at Green Bay.

He started five of the Vikings’ final six games in place of Erin Henderson, who was benched in November following the first of two drunken-driving arrests that derailed his career.

Three weeks before Cole’s debut, general manager Rick Spielman was in dire straits.

The Vikings, buried at 1-7 in the NFC North, were besieged by injuries. Only 42 healthy players — four less than the maximum — dressed for a Thursday night home game against Washington. To activate offensive tackle Kevin Murphy that week from the practice squad, someone had to be waived.

Farewell, Audie, best known as the long-haired wunderkind who intercepted passes and returned them for touchdowns on consecutive plays from scrimmage during a 2012 preseason game against Buffalo.

“It was a gamble, but I know we were in desperation mode at the time,” Spielman recalled. “We were very worried and concerned about losing him and felt fortunate to get him back.”

Cole cleared waivers and returned to Winter Park, humbled and slightly cynical.

“Obviously, I didn’t like it, but I knew it was going to happen,” he said. “When you’re getting waived, you know you’re close to the bottom of who’s in and who’s out.

“They told me that day, ‘We don’t want to do this. We’re bringing you back tomorrow.’ Thank God they did. I’m glad the situation worked out for me. We have a good thing going here.”

At 6 feet 5, 239 pounds, Cole has plenty of size to be an NFL linebacker. He was a tackling machine for the Wolfpack, twice recording 16 tackles during his redshirt senior season in 2011, when he was a Butkus Award semifinalist as the country’s best college linebacker.

However, a lumbering performance at the NFL’s 2012 scouting combine did nothing to improve his stock. ESPN partner Scouts Inc., said Cole “doesn’t have the burst to chase NFL backs down from behind. Gets caught up in the wash a little too much.”

“He’s a smart and instinctive football player,” Spielman said. “He may not always be the most athletic, but his smarts and his instincts get him into position to make plays all the time.”

Veteran Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway said Cole “has a great nose for the ball” and recognizes formations and reads blocks quickly enough to shed most.

“He’s definitely got the ability to do that when it counts,” Greenway said.

During Monday night’s practice, Cole spied rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater trying to thread a red-zone pass over the middle to tight end Mike Higgins, darted into the lane and made an easy interception.

Earlier in camp, Cole jumped a flat route and picked off Bridgewater for what would have been a pick-six.

“People have said that forever,” Cole said about his ball-hawking skills. “I think it has to do with coaching and knowing what plays teams run, knowing what keys to read. Honestly, an offense is telling you what to do every time they line up in a formation. You’ve just got to see what they’ve got going and just figure it out.”

Cole makes it sound simple, but he did the inconspicuous work before debuting Nov. 24 at frigid Lambeau Field.

“It’s paid off because I was prepared up to that point,” he said. “I had sat for a year and a half just watching, waiting my turn. And when I got it, I just made the most of it.”

At Monroe High School, Cole was a three-year starter at quarterback who occasionally played safety. He was recruited by Kelly, then at Central Michigan, to throw.

When Kelly moved on to Cincinnati, he hoped Cole would follow. Central Michigan hoped he would honor his commitment.

Then Tom O’Brien left Boston College to coach N.C. State He had seen something in Cole to offer him a scholarship, first bringing him in as a tight end before switching him to linebacker.

Cole mentored under linebackers coach John Tenuta.

“He was great,” Cole said. “He taught me so much about offenses, how to watch film, what to look for, what you’re seeing on the field. When I played my first full season on defense, I figured this could be something.”

If he was not chasing ballcarriers, Cole figures he would be fighting fires. He still goes on ridealongs with his uncle, a fireman in nearby Ypsilanti, Mich.

“They let me get all suited up. I get to run hoses for them. It’s fun,” Cole said. “It’s something I’d like to do but not something I really want to think about now.”

The Cole family’s athletic roots are in Ypsilanti, home to Eastern Michigan University.

William Audie Cole, a standout outfielder in the mid-1970s, is in the school’s athletic hall of fame. He was a college teammate of flamethrower Bob Welch, the two-time all-star and three-time World Series champion pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A’s who died in June.

Cole was drafted by the Dodgers in 1980 and spent two years in their system before a torn rotator cuff ended his baseball career. He returned as a graduate assistant to Eastern Michigan, where he met his wife, Betsy.

The couple settled in Monroe and had a daughter, Cassie, and then Audie. Mom is a kindergarten teacher, and dad has worked as a trucker, in an auto plant and now for a landscaping company.

“Maybe it’s the way I raised him, but I always told Audie, ‘Don’t talk about yourself; let everyone else do that,’ ” William Cole said. ” ‘You go out and do what you do.’ He’s a ‘prove-it dude’ who’s worked hard to overcome the ‘he’s not fast enough, not this, not that.’ I love it.”

Audie Cole did not always listen to his father when it came to sports.

Cole won the 201-pound Golden Gloves competition in Toledo, Ohio, and then hung up the gloves to refocus on football.

Growing up, he was known as “Little Audie,” next to his father, “Big Audie.”

William Cole became Audie because he hated the boring-sounding William and kids gravitated toward his out-of-the-ordinary middle name, bestowed in May 1958.

His mother still was in the hospital after giving birth, struggling to come up with a middle name. She picked up a TV guide on the nightstand next to her bed. On the cover was Audie Murphy, an icon of the era who became a Hollywood star after earning numerous service medals for combat bravery during World War II.

One thing has changed between William Cole and his son.

“I’m Little Audie. He’s Big Audie now,” he said.

They talk almost daily, two laid-back Michiganders with something new to share about Audie’s rapid ascension.

William and Betsy Cole traveled to all of their son’s college games and his late-season starts last year, and they plan to at least attend Minnesota’s nearby NFC North road games in 2014.

“Everyone says I’m a lot like him,” Audie said about his father. “I don’t get worked up about a lot. Things happen. Even if I don’t like it, there’s no reason to pout about it. Make something happen to turn it in your favor.”

Brian Murphy has been on the Pioneer Press sports staff since 2000, migrating from the Detroit Free Press, where he covered police, courts and sports for four years. Murphy was the Minnesota Wild/NHL beat writer from 2002 to 2008 and has covered the Vikings as a reporter and columnist since 2009. Murphy is a Detroit native and Wayne State University graduate.

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in Sports

Glen Perkins’ 16-month comeback odyssey reached fruition Thursday afternoon as the decorated Twins reliever trotted in from the bullpen to pitch the ninth inning against the Cleveland Indians with a four-run deficit. It hardly mattered to Perkins, activated off the 60-day disabled list for his first big-league outing since April 10, 2016, that he was being eased back into the...

Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck spent eight minutes breaking down why he declared Thursday that both Demry Croft and Conor Rhoda will play in the season opener against Buffalo on Aug. 31. Whether the sophomore Croft or the senior Rhoda takes the first snap at TCF Bank Stadium will be inconsequential, Fleck said, and despite how one of them performs...

Max Kepler made up for his embarrassing miscue in memorable fashion. Shortly after his slip on the slick outfield grass allowed the tying run to score in Thursday’s doubleheader nightcap, Kepler cracked his 15th homer to lift the Twins to a 4-2 win over the Cleveland Indians at Target Field. That seventh-inning turnabout ended a 10-game home losing streak against...

Stephane Veilleux plopped down at a local Caribou Coffee last week and the memories of his near decade-long career with the Minnesota Wild came flooding back. He smiled when he talked about getting picked in the third round of the 2001 NHL Draft. That smile grew as he described his first career goal, which he proudly noted came against legendary...

St. Croix Central won’t forget last year’s surprising run to the Division 4 state title. The Panthers went 4-3 in Middle Border Conference play – the minimum conference record required to advance to the postseason – before going on a five-game tear through the playoffs. The run included a 21-14 upset win over Osceola, the MBC champion, and a last-second semifinal...